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Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week We Went to the Work and Culture Museum

We had a great week filled with birthday celebrations, hiking, baking, crafting and friends. We have just started learning about the industrial revolution and I remembered a museum that I had been wanting to check out with the boys that would fit in perfectly with our unit so we made a a plan to end our week with a fun field trip. I began a 52 week challenge to get myself in front of the camera more often and the boys have taken me at my word asking me to pose while they take pictures.

We were having friends over on Friday afternoon to celebrate a belated birthday for Alec. He didn't want a "real" party this year but did ask if he could invite a few friends over during the week for cupcakes and to watch a movie or play. He got right to work mixing up frosting and frosted the cupcakes... I would have helped or even made them for him since it's his birthday but he really wanted to make the cupcakes all by himself. The boys did work on a bit of math, reading and Grammar before we put our schoolwork away and did a quick once over cleaning of the house. Alec invited three families over and we had a WONDERFUL afternoon hanging out with our friends and I have to say I enjoyed seeing all the moms too!

Alec and I went shopping on Saturday. In place of a party he wanted us to go shopping together and out to lunch at Panera bread so that's what we did! We stopped at Barnes and Noble (bought a few books and he got his free birthday cookie), Target (where he picked out some bedding), Gamestop (for a video game), and out to lunch. He had a huge smile on his face as he dug into his Caesar salad. We were having his grandparents over for dinner that night so I decorated his cake and we made a salad and some spaghetti. He asked if I could wrap a few of his gifts so he'd have something to open and I agreed to put everything in gift bags for him. We had a wonderful night visiting with all of his grandparents and he was thrilled with all of his gifts and his lemon cake.

Ian headed to work again on Sunday and my husband took the younger two boys to help him clear out some more tools from his great uncle's old shop. I had the house to myself again! I worked on some fun Cricut/ craft projects and spent most of the afternoon binge watching Episodes on Netflix. It was pretty warm out so we all ventured out for a walk in the woods before dinner. We saw quite a few large turkeys up at the top of our giant pine trees; many took flight as we got close and it was really neat to see them flying as we had always been told that they weren't great flyers.

It was a rainy Monday and the boys and I didn't have a whole lot of ambition. They worked on some schoolwork; math, spelling/ word family work, some reading and a bit of history. They each cleaned their bedrooms and when the rain finally broke they spent a bit of time playing outside. We picked up some new books from the library and Alec spent most of the afternoon in his room listening to Sea Of Monsters on audiobook while putting together his new Lego sets. Ian spent a large part of his afternoon putting working on his metal bulldozer model and Evan counted up his money hoping to buy a new Pokemon video game.

It's really shaping up now! It just needs a blade.

It poured all day on Tuesday and Alec slept so late he almost didn't make it to karate. The boys all worked on math, reading, and cursive then together we read a history book and watched a fun geography video on YouTube. Ian had bought himself a new Lego set and spent most of the day putting it together. It's a gold mining set and he just loves it!

I had to go grocery shopping on Wednesday but the boys and I had plans to go hiking so I asked them all to work on their work while I was gone and told them they could play video games when they were finished. Alec actually started his schoolwork at 6:30 in the morning! They all had some reading, math and grammar to work on and I tried to make sure they all knew what they had to do before I left. Luckily I went to the store very early and had plenty of time after shopping to help them complete what work they needed help with. We also had time to squeeze in a fun art project using chalk pastels before loading up the car and heading out to walk some more of the airline trails. We were the only ones that showed up to hike to we only walked for 30 minutes or so; it was cold and a bit windy so 30 minutes was enough but it felt great to get out and get walking.

On Thursday I decided to take the boys on a field trip. It's been awhile since we were out of the house learning and I found a local museum that I hoped would fit in perfectly with our study on the industrial revolution. The boys all worked on some math and reading. Alec chose to listen to his book on CD and spent a good portion of his morning working in his color by numbers book finishing up a few fairy tale pictures. Evan asked if he could make some Chex mix and made up a quick batch before lunch. We finished up our family read aloud, ate some lunch, and headed out to the museum. We had such a wonderful time! It was a small museum and since we were there in the afternoon on a weekday we had the whole place to ourselves; all the workers made it a point to stop and talk with the boys sharing their knowledge and some behind the scenes pictures, artifacts, and objects. I just love that I was able to bring this history lesson to life for them. We ended our night with a few family games: Tellestrations, Scattegories, and Cranium.

Comments

Wish I had a bowl of that snack mix!! LOVE the hearts pretty lady! Happy belated to your sweet boy, I love that he just wanted to chill with pals and cupcakes! And have a fun day with mom to boot! Have a great weekend!

It really was a great week! I have to say after checking out this museum (that I honestly thought was going to be small and not worth our time or trip) has made me determined to try out other museums that I've sort of talked myself out of visiting with the boys.

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